Human rights in Mongolia have long been an interesting issue, and in general they are viewed as being a much more democratic and fair country than their neighbors China and Russia. While they do deserve that reputation, Mongolia still seems to struggle with issues of human rights, and the pandemic brought to light what some would consider the more autocratic side of the Mongolian government.
Mongolia is very much a free and democratic nation however recently pandemic restrictions seem to have been abused in order to exert control over the populace. With regards to freedom to assembly and protesting. During 2021, healthcare workers and others who had been negatively impacted by pandemic restrictions took to the streets and peacefully protested. The government used restrictions as a pretext to disperse these protests, often violently. These protests often were made up of healthcare workers who had been exposed to highly unsafe conditions in Mongolia’s underdeveloped healthcare system unprepared for the pandemic. (Amnesty International 2021) Ultimately Mongolia seems to making efforts on the whole to improve the state of human rights.
An interesting exception to what is an impressive record on human rights for a developing country is that of torture in Mongolia. Mongolia despite agreeing to UN anti-torture provisions as a country has not actually provided for any protections from torture in law. 53 cases had been reviewed with only 2 convictions and very little ability to seek reparations. (Amnesty 2021). Mongolia also struggles with pretty majore anti-LGBTQ sentiment, although this seems to be more cultural than governmental as LGBTQ identifying people have full rights politically and socially in Mongolia.
From a human rights perspective Mongolia does a pretty good job considering they are by no means a rich country. Mongolia is an interesting case from an ethnocentrism perspective due to the rather broad definition of Mongolian. Mongolian can mean many things from resident of Mongolia to specific ethnic groups in Asia or even anyone who speaks a language in the Mongolian Language group. All this simply Means Mongolian can mean many things depending on the context. In Mongolia however there are so many different cultural groups that consider themselves different from each other that ethnocentrism is not necessarily seen the same way even within the same country. (Wu, 2018)The Buryat group in Mongolia consider themselves separate from Mongolia as we think of it, and many Mongolians outside of the country are even further separated from each other due to the number of languages and cultures and changes that have occurred within those languages in the past century (Szmyt 2011). Ultimately this is what makes the Pan-Mongolism movement impossible-Mongolians don’t all have one identity to unite under. The country itself doesn’t have its own ethnocentric ideals but the groups within the country do.
Citations
Szmyt, Zbigniew. (2011). Nation and ethnicity in Mongolia. Etnograficeskoe Obozrenie. 84-103.
Sarina Wu (2020) To share or not to share: contested heritage in Inner Mongolia, China —A case of overtone singing (khoomei), International Journal of Heritage Studies, 26:3, 267-280, DOI: 10.1080/13527258.2019.1620833
Fallone, Andrew. “Oppositional Identities: The Pitfalls of Postcolonial Identity Creation in Mongolia.” The World Mind, The World Mind, 11 Mar. 2020, https://www.theworldmind.org/home/2018/4/3/oppositional-identities-the-pitfalls-of-postcolonial-identity-creation-in-mongolia.
“Mongolia Archives.” Amnesty International, https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/mongolia/report-mongolia/.